The present invention relates generally to drawer slides and specifically to a bottom center mounted drawer slide. While many types of drawer slides are old and well known no drawer slide of the exact design proposed by the inventor is known.
The inventor knows of no prior art which discloses the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,659,237 discloses a concealed guide rail assembly and includes runner carriages which are guided on each side of the drawer between a respective supporting rail on the side of a furniture body and a pull out rail on the side of the drawer. The supporting rails have an upwardly open U-shaped profile with horizontally extending marginal flanges. The rollers of the runner carriages move on the upper side as well as the lower side of the supporting rails, i.e. in the U-shaped profile and at the marginal flanges. No runner carriage of the type disclosed in the present invention is taught or described by this patent. Nor does it teach the use of a structure for a center mounted drawer slide but rather it teaches the use of a concealed guide rail assembly for use on each of the opposite sides of an article of furniture for guiding movement of a member such as a drawer into and out of a furniture body.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,942 discloses a drawer slide assembly for supporting a drawer to slide open and close in an opening of a cabinet frame and includes an elongated upper member extending longitudinally of the drawer and secured to the drawer and a parallel lower member spaced below the upper member and secured to the frame. A pair of rollers are journaled side by side on the upper member near the rear thereof and engage track sections on the lower member. Similarly, a second pair of rollers are journaled on the lower member near the front thereof and these engage track sections formed on the upper member. The rollers are given a short axial profile while having effective diameters greater than their actual diameters by forming the rollers with surfaces that are inclined at acute angles relative to the roller axis. The associated track sections are inclined at similar angles. Each roller of the second pair of rollers is journaled by a plurality of bearing balls which are arranged so that the line of force of the load of the drawer is offset from the centers of the balls in a direction to produce a force which results in all of the balls supporting a portion of the load. This device is not the same as the device disclosed herein, and in particular, at least one of the rollers disclosed herein must always be frustoconical. Such a structure is not required by the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,649,086 discloses a drawer guide to provide noiseless, low friction operation of a drawer and is comprised of a channel shaped base member which is adapted to a fixed position in an article of furniture in order to extend centrally and longitudinally of the drawer in order to support the drawer. An inverted channel shaped slide member is adapted to be fixed to the bottom of the drawer and one of the members is telescoped within the other. A block of durable low friction material is extended centrally inside the outer member. The inner member has side walls terminating in turned-in flanges which extend into a groove on both sides of the block and which are also provided with ears of a durable low friction material that extend laterally from the side walls of the inner member and extend vertically beyond such turned in flanges into engagement with the outer members. The ears are located adjacent to one end of the assembly and the block is located adjacent to the other end of the assembly so that the drawer when closed is centrally supported at one end by the ears and at the other by the block. This is different in structure from the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,002,576 discloses a structure having upper slides which move parallel to each other in opposite directions by virtue of a reciprocating wheel 72 which when one side is moved in one direction causes the other side to move in the other direction. This is completely different in function and structure from the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,772 discloses a separable bottom mounted drawer slide and is characterized in that the slide assembly is provided with means for enabling the drawer to be removed and to be replaced with a minimum of manipulative effort. The slide assembly incorporates fail-safe features which assure that the assembly latching the drawer channel to the stationary channel is automatically shifted to a locked position responsive to assembly of the channels and is always in a position locked against accidental removal when the channels reach their mutually extended positions. Again this structure is not the same as the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,773 is chiefly important for disclosing a drawer slide assembly adapted to provide a secure connection between the drawer channel component of the assembly and the drawers having a wide depth. Again this structure is different from that of the present invention in both function as well as structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,553 discloses a drawer slide member having a C-shaped cross section installable on the underside of a drawer to co-act with an elongated dresser guide having a generally T-shaped cross section. The slide member has an elongated inwardly directed rib located on the vertical walls of the slide member. The ribs extend substantially over the length of the slide member and include additional inwardly directed ribs adjacent to the front end of the slide member. Again this structure is different from the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,906 discloses a drawer slide having a novel front panel connection. The essence of this invention is a channel shaped slide for the underside of a drawer having a fluted angle interior tab at its front end for securing the slide to a drawer having a hollow front panel. The structure is quite different from the present structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,365,261 discloses a slidable drawer structure.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,525 discloses a universal drawer slide mounting bracket for multiple positioning use with a drawer rail assembly that is a unitary member composed of a channel sleeve integral with an orifice mount plate along a linear junction. The mount plate includes a plurality of bend loci formed by the aligned orifices, one of which bend loci lies along a linear juncture and the others being normal thereto, with portions of the mount plate being formable along the bend loci in a multiplicity of directions. Again this is not the same as the present invention.